Serious bodybuilders pump iron, but librarians pump paper. There were many leftover books from yesterday to shelve. More trickled into the book return all day, and needed to be checked for damage, checked in, wiped off, set on our holding shelves to dry, and then get shelved all over the library.
We had one of our homeschooling families stop in and borrow a stack of books—yes, they were responsible for part of the above paragraph's travails—and I was amused by the way one of the boys insisted on hefting the entire haul himself. That was what inspired me to encourage him to pump paper and be a real athlete while I mimed weight-lifting.
We also had an elderly patron with health and vision problems who wanted us to print 180-odd pages after using the internet. She has trouble reading the screen, and even though I have showed her how to increase text size in the browser, she would rather just pay us to print all her articles about health research and whatnot. You may recall when I gave the wrong answers on a survey a couple weeks ago. Well, here's an example of the kind of names and facts we could gossip about all day in a small town like mine if we were so inclined. We don't do that, though. At any rate, she also walked out pumping paper, although in her case it was just a ream of printer paper.
No deep philosophy or gear reviews or craft tips today, just a rambling story about life in the library. I'll see you again whenever the muses inspire me next!
LoL ahh I remember "pumping paper" when I would help my mum in the library (she's a librarian) over the school holidays XD
Would be a pretty decent workout if you were shifting the heavier books regularly XD (I did not do decent workouts as the heavier books tended to be in the reference section which from memory weren't allowed to leave the library)
Are you pretty buff then from all the paper pumping? :D
I have to go easy on myself thanks to a couple back injuries and chronic illness, but there is a definite degree of aerobic exercise to spending several hours just moving books around for 5 days per week.
Books can be heavy! My daughter's school backpack weights more than I care to lift.